


Soldiers

by MrProphet



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 17:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10701432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet
Summary: There were so many things to hate about the Transformers' movies. This story addresses just two of my narrative bugbears: The introduction of Arcee simply to be offscreen collateral damage in the baffling climactic battle of the second film, and the unremarked murder of Ironhide in the third. The former touches on the sexism and mysogyny ingrained into Michael Bay's film-making; the latter is just sloppy. At a dozen lines and a barrel roll, Ironhide was still one of the most notable of the Autobot characters and his death barely even got a shocked expression. No "Goodnight, sweet prince," no "By Grabthar's hammer;" and it's not like this isn't indicative of Bay's approach to his human characters.I refer you to the Beastwars episode Code of Hero; that's how a Transformer should get to go out.





	1. Scrapheap

The two Autobots slid and clattered down the side of the gully, then hurried along towards the edge of the scrapyard. Around them rose monuments to the dead of both sides, from the days when the sanctity of such burial sites held. Back then, Autobot and Decepticon could stand together over the internment of the fallen; now they just dumped the handful of unrecoverable parts and ran, before anyone came to make sure they joined their friends in the yard.

“I think in future we’re going to have to give up on scrapyard runs; lay the dead to rest closer to home,” the older of the two Autobots noted. “Remind me to tell Prime that when we get back.”

“Forget it, Ironhide,” the younger insisted. “We can’t go much further.”

“Far enough,” Ironhide spat. “Come on, Arcee, don’t give up. There’s only two of them left.”

“There’s only two of us,” Arcee reminded her comrade. “And we’re beat up enough I don’t think we count as more than one-and-a-half.”

Arcee began to stumble, but Ironhide caught her and held her up. “Yes, but we came here as two; they had five.”

“Who do they have?” Arcee asked. “I was kind of too busy to keep track of who…”

Even as he spoke, a small figure dropped into the gully in front of them. With a single punch it slammed Arcee back about thirty feet.

“Rumble,” Ironhide said.

Rumble made a noise like stones grinding together. He swung at Ironhide, but the old soldier leaned back and lashed out with a kick, sending the small Decepticon flying, just as Rumble had done to Arcee.

With a growl of rage, Rumble slammed his fist into the gully floor. His arm began to vibrate wildly, and the ground shook beneath the Autobots’ feet. Ironside stumbled, but Arcee flipped to her feet, braced herself with three limbs and fired with the third. Rumble tried to dodge the explosive shell, but his hand was lodged in the ground and he was struck full in the face.

“Come on!” Ironhide warned. “He’ll have heard.”

“Who?” Arcee demanded.

“Bludgeon!”

“Oh… great.”

They ran, but in only a few moments a barrage of explosions forced them up out of the gulley. They half-turned and tried to return fire, but their weapons sputtered uselessly.

“Of course,” Ironside admitted as they ran, “the problem with defeating a numerically superior enemy force is it plays hell with your ammo.”

“I’m right out,” Arcee agreed. “It’ll be at least half a unit until I have any weapon charge back; more if we have to keep running. I could probably manage a good impulse blast, but I don’t know that  _that_  is going to be worried by a little pushing around.”

They dodged behind an ancient mausoleum which erupted in a blast of flame and thunder.

“I got one shell and nothing on lasers,” Ironhide noted.

“So… we’re slag,” Arcee observed. “Well, it’s been a pleasure working with you, sir.”

Ironhide looked about at the scattered pieces of wrecked Transformer, their vehicle modes still visible; there an armoured transport, there a fighter, there a helicarrier. “Let’s not give up so soon,” he said.

Bludgeon thundered after the two Autobots, weapons at the ready. He strode over the wreck of the mausoleum, not caring whether it was the resting place of an Autobot or a Decepticon that he trampled underfoot. He rounded the corner of another monument and there he saw one of the Autobots lying face down on the scrapheap.

He gave a harsh, grating laugh and lifted his arms to aim all of his formidable arsenal at his crippled target. “Goodbye, Autobot,” he growled.

“Goodbye, Decepticon!” A moment before Bludgeon could fire on Arcee, Ironhide stepped out from behind the monument and swung the rotor blade from a fallen Transformer with enough force to sever Bludgeon’s arm. A second swing took out one of his shoulder-mounted launchers, before Bludgeon turned on him.

Ironhide leaped aside and ran, with Bludgeon’s cannon spitting death at his heels.

Behind the Decepticon, Arcee leaped to her feet and swung a fighter wing like an axe, smashing Bludgeon’s second shoulder-launcher. As Bludgeon recoiled, Ironhide hurled the rotor blade two-handed, sending it spinning into the slow-moving Decepticon’s chest.

Arcee chopped at Bludgeon’s legs and Ironhide leaped in, swinging now with a long-discarded arm. With furious rage they poured out their anger and hatred on their foe, tearing at his armour without mercy.

At last, they fell back. Bludgeon lay twitching on the ground, broken and battered, but still functional.

“Does he ever die!” Arcee demanded.

Ironhide raised his cannon and sent his last shell spinning through a rent in Bludgeon’s armour. Bludgeon’s body jumped once, spewing flame from every crack, and then lay still.

“Come on, kid,” Ironside said. “Let’s go home.”


	2. The Gunner's Prologue and Tale

The convoy wound its way through the canyon. The two-wheeler on point ranged ahead, but the rest of the group followed slowly, their pace seemingly set by the big half-track on drag. When they stopped for a rest, the two-wheeler ran back along the line to check up on him.

“Is the going too tough for you, Old Man?” she asked.

The half-track bucked off its front wheels and transformed, its panels folding into Ironhide’s heavily armoured torso. He rose to his full height for a moment, then quickly dropped into a crouch.

After a moment, Arcee transformed and bent down beside her mentor.

“You and I might make it through this canyon on nothing more than speed, experience and shining chrome finish, but the rest of this lot aren’t old soldiers. We need to go slow and easy and you need to keep your sensors on full band for ambush.”

“There aren’t any Decepticons in this valley worth the mention,” Arcee assured him. “The satellite survey…”

“Could be wrong, as could the scout intel, the prisoner debriefs and the tactical projections. There’s only one intelligence source you can trust absolutely and that’s…”

“…your own sensors. I know, I know.”

“And that’s only if Hound isn’t around,” Ironhide amended. “The Decepticons have a lot of very mobile fighters; eighty-to-ninety percent of the aerial transformers went over to Megatron. We can not afford to assume they’re still where they were yesterday.

“Now we got maybe five hundred klicks of this canyon to go before we reach the Citadel. If we make it intact then the Citadel might just hold for another six weeks; long enough for Impactor to detonate Operation Volcano. If this column gets hit because you get careless, you might just have lost the war for us. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” Arcee muttered.

“What was that?”

“Yes,  _sir_.” She glowered at him. “Why d’you always ride me so hard, Ironhide? The rest of these rattletraps…”

“Trailbreaker, Wheeljack; you’re on watch,” Ironhide called softly, cutting her off. “Arcee and I’ll scout ahead a ways. Keep sharp, people; don’t get sloppy just ‘cause we’re almost home.” 

He led her up the side of the canyon and they scouted the plateau above. Only when they had been scouting for the best part of half an hour did he motion for her to crouch in cover and break silence again.

“I ride you harder than I ride those rattletraps because you are a professional soldier, Arcee, although I know you like to forget that fact when it’s inconvenient for you. I expect more from you than I do from a retrofitted cargo hauler.”

“But you treat me like a child. You know I’m good.”

“Good isn’t good enough,” he told her gruffly. “Look; sit down. I’ll see if I can explain what I mean.”

*

‘Back when we all thought the war was just a little revolution that would be over in a year, there was a soldier in my regiment named Sunstreaker. He was good; he was very good. He and his brother, Sideswipe, were the best I had. You remind me a lot of Sideswipe; he was tough and fearless, and just a little too cocky. Sunstreaker was never rash, but he thought that he was just too good to ever make a mistake, and anything that did go wrong was of course someone else’s fault.

‘Of course, someone like Sunstreaker was never going to be satisfied with an ordinary trooper’s role. He thought he was officer material and he didn’t intend to wait on the approval of stuffy old rust-buckets like me.

‘Eighteen months into the fighting, we were stationed in the old fortress above Naga Pass. We were on intel watch, minimum visibility, watching the Decepticon encampments on Aigen Mesa. Then, one day, a squad of ‘Cons came and set up a listening post at the foot of our ridge; four of them, with surveillance gear in cases.

‘Sunstreaker wanted to wipe them out straight away, but I held back. I didn’t like it. If we attacked then we’d give ourselves away and we were getting too much intel to risk it. Then, Starscream came to inspect the post himself.

‘Ah; you think I should have attacked, don’t you? Sunstreaker did as well. In fact, he thought it so strongly that he told his squad I’d given the word.

‘Now, the reason I didn’t give the go ahead – the reason I wasn’t leading the attack myself – was that to me it was obviously a trap. I told Sunstreaker as much, but he ran a full spectrum scan and there was nothing out of the ordinary. Everything we had told us this was an easy target and a chance to take out Megatron’s lieutenant; everything but this.

‘It was wrong. I could feel it in my Spark.

‘I said all that to Sunstreaker. He didn’t listen. He led the strike at sunset, dropping out of the fortress onto the listening post.

‘The Decepticons were waiting for them. As soon as they appeared the ‘Cons opened fire; they hit a wall of missiles halfway down the ridge that broke their formation apart. Then the cases broke open and a dozen of Soundwave’s little friends came tumbling out.

‘It was a massacre.

‘Our position was lost, so I led the rest down the cliff face to retrieve what we could. I don’t think the Decepticons were expecting a second wave; they fell back to regroup and we were able to retreat to the fortress.

‘The cost was too high. We lost half a dozen, including Sideswipe. And then Sunstreaker insisted on staying to cover our retreat. He fought to the last; we needed the time, but we couldn’t afford to lose a warrior like Sunstreaker, not with his brother gone already.’

*

“I push you hard, because I don’t want you to go the same way.”

Arcee sighed. “I’m not like that. I wouldn’t ignore your advice and I’d never be that sloppy.”

“No?” Ironhide asked. “Then you’ve noticed the Decepticons behind you, making their way towards our comrades in the canyon?”

“What?” she turned and, after a moment, saw them; three Decepticons, almost a mile distant. “How did you spot them?”

“I didn’t. I just knew they’d be there.” Ironhide rose quietly to his feet and extended his cannons. “Power up your weapons,” he said. “Let’s do some damage.”


	3. A Farewell to Arms

“Stupid old man,” Arcee muttered. “You knew you were meant to die in battle.”

She reached down and scooped up another handful of rust. The fine powder flowed through her fingers and into the shell casing. It was a pitifully small amount to be all that was left of Ironhide.

“You were a good teacher,” she sighed, “and a good friend.” She rose stiffly. “And I still don’t know how you managed to move so well with all the damage you took over the years.”

The shell fit snugly into the breach of one of Ironhide’s spare cannon. Arcee closed her eyes and began to sing in Cybertronian. To human ears it was a raw, electronic screech like a misdialled fax. Only another machine could have appreciated the unearthly beauty of her funeral hymn.

She lowered her head, the song done. “You go from a perishable to an imperishable realm, old man; from the battlefield to the Halls of Peace,” she said. “Your circuits shall not degrade as those of we who stay behind degrade, nor shall age make you obsolete. From the stars we come and to stars we shall return.

“May your Spark go back to the source and be born again, Ironhide, for we need strength such as yours.”

Arcee shouldered the cannon and fired; the shell bearing Ironhide’s mortal remains arced into the sky and vanished from view, its trajectory bearing it out and away from Earth’s orbit. “A course which we must follow,” she sighed. “Away from Earth; away from the fight. I yearn for peace, but not this way , and not while the traitor yet lives.”

The wind stirred the last traces of rust on the ground. Arcee felt a crackle of energy across her circuits and a distinct, fleeting presence of... “Ironhide?”

She looked around, but of course her mentor was not there; he never would be again. She was not, however, alone.

A shadow at the edge of the building moved, resolved into a vast form. “He will always be with us,” Optimus Prime said. “His spark lives on in you, his student.”

“Optimus...”

He laid a hand on her shoulder, and in the depths of his eyes she could see that he felt the same pain and conflict that she felt. “It is not over,” he said softly. “It will never be over while tyranny and treachery remain.”

“You have a plan?”

He squeezed her shoulder gently. “Always. Ironhide taught us both well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were so many things to hate about the Transformers' movies. This story addresses just two of my narrative bugbears: The introduction of Arcee simply to be offscreen collateral damage in the baffling climactic battle of the second film, and the unremarked murder of Ironhide in the third. The former touches on the sexism and mysogyny ingrained into Michael Bay's film-making; the latter is just sloppy. At a dozen lines and a barrel roll, Ironhide was still one of the most notable of the Autobot characters and his death barely even got a shocked expression. No "Goodnight, sweet prince," no "By Grabthar's hammer;" and it's not like this isn't indicative of Bay's approach to his human characters.
> 
> I refer you to the Beastwars episode Code of Hero; that's how a Transformer should get to go out.


End file.
